I Never Forget a Face...

Okay, here's a brilliant idea. Somone at Google should get on this right away;

As I was reminded in my last post, it can be really hard to find an image online if you don't already know the name or source of the image. I mean, if you had a picture of the Mona Lisa, but didn't know it by title or that it was painted by Leonardo, how would you go about finding it, or finding more information about it?

There ought to be some search software that would allow you to search the web for a particular image, not by title or subject, but by matching the visual information of the image, using something like the facial recognition software now used in security applications.

So, you just need a digital image - from a camera, or the web, or a scanned image - which you could then feed into the search, and the software would generate a list of the closest visual matches to that image found on the web. You might even be able to use this to identify places or landmarks you had photographed but forgotten.

Of course, this might have its nefarious uses, as well.

But there you go, the next big thing in web searches. You folks at Google, just direct deposit my royalty checks.

You're welcome.

UPDATE: Well, it appears that this concept is already in the works (check the links in the combox), which is not that surprising, but... NUTS! There goes my royalty checks, not to mention everlasting fame....

Comments

[Foxfier]

*looks at Picasa* They're already working on that.

Doesn't work wonderfully well, but it is handy for labeling the 10k pictures my mom has. (the thousand or so that have visible faces)

[jim janknegt]

check out this site: Tiny Eye.

http://www.tineye.com/

I tried it. They found the Mona Lisa but not Guillaumin.

Still in development but has potential.

[Sleeping Beastly]

http://google.com/mobile/goggles/#text

[The Masked Chicken]

Tim J.,

They don't have voice recognition, yet, so there's still hope for your royalty checks. Since they are both wave phenomena (light and sound), one can use similar techniques.

I want ten percent.

The Chicken